We were mates in school but drifted apart for a good few years as I had moved away. We met up again and started hanging out when i moved home two years ago. It took me a while but i eventually remembered why i had let the friendship drift, she is in my opinion a pathalogical liar. Her life is filled with so much drama it makes the soaps seem tame, granted she has suffered some serious tragedies which i genuinely sympathise with, but even when there's nothing going on she'll have some eyepopping story to tell which is often as far as i'm concerned, fuelled by nothing but imagination. Example of this, a guy she was friendly with made a pass at her and she went to the police and reported him for sexual assault. Thank god nothing came of it as the guy in question is totally harmless. Another big drama was she met a guy on a night out and gave him her phone number. He sent her a few texts and the next thing you know, she's "being stalked" and is frightened for her life. I could go on. Through me, my best friend got close to this girl and they now spend a lot of time together. I have never voiced my opinions to my best friend about the lies, she seems totally sucked in and in the last while has taken over from me as chief sympathiser.

I'd been avoiding this girl for the last few months, having a good excuse as it happened, I was helping to care for a close relative who passed away about a month ago. Not only did my so called friend not attend the funeral despite being perfectly aware of how close I was to this lady, she never even called to sympathise. I wasnt too surprised, as she generally finds other people's problems to be wholly uninteresting and always appears genuinely bored when talking about anything other than herself. I got a text from her today asking me to attend a party she's throwing to celebrate her new job. Also a little guilt trip, i'm never around, she hasnt seen me in ages etc. I text her back and apologised for not being around but pointed out that I'd recently been bereaved. About half an hour later I got another text from her saying "yeah I heard but anyway, I just had a miscarriage." My first thought upon reading the message was that it was probably not true. If it is, it would be her third alleged miscarriage in the last ten years, despite being very careful with contraception. I didnt bother replying to the message.

I wonder if i'm being unfair. I keep trying to tell myself it might actually be true and I should offer her some support but I just cant bring myself to do it. I just feel so angry that she couldnt even offer a few words of sympathy for my loss regardless of whether or not this actually has happened to her. I want so badly to get this girl out of my life, but I dont want to have to go through the process of confronting her as I know I'll never get any good of it, and she's dangerous to be on the wrong side of. As well as that, I feel like if I cut ties with her I'll be cutting them with my best friend too. Just seems like I cant win. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Just speak to or socialise with this girl when you have to, don't go out of your way to speak to her.

I also went to school with a girl like this. Needless to say we all cut contact with her because we were totally fed up with her and her lies, the thing with our friend was she'd tell me one thing, then tell the other girls another thing when I was sitting next to her when she'd just told me the "other" story - she did this with everyone...eventually we used to laugh about it, we'd all compare notes. I rememner once the teacher came over to her when she was with me and said "your lesson this afternoon is cancelled" - she then told 2 of our other friends that she couldn't make the lesson later because "she had to go to the doctors". Any excuse she had was "got to go to the doctors".

omg! I have a friend who is exactly the same, every month there is a new crisis in her life, this girl has had everything from M.E, diabetes, a heart attack and abnormal cells all over the place. Apparently her parents made her have an abortion when she was eight months pregnant, she since has had at least one miscarriage a year.Shes is always suffering with food poisoning, shes always fainting. She once was obese and now she is an anorexic.Then theres always someone dying or theres always a death in her family. Last one was her other cousin that died of a herion over dose.She also then revealed her big family secret, that both her cousins are actually her sisters being brought up by her aunt. The latest story is that her 16 year old sister ran away but they found her in a tube station and now she is in hospital because someone tried to mug her.

Like yourself, after dealing with this for 4 years im am so fed up.im so sure that most of these stories are not true, esp when i tell her something that ive been through to find out she's been through the same thing but surprise suprise her experiences are always worse. im getting to the point now where im actually avoiding her big time. I think thats the only thing either of us can do in this situation, both girls sound like they constantly need attention and will do anything for it. Its a very sad situation.

The TruthTruth is a sweet nectar from an honest fruitful heart, from the fruit come seeds and from the seeds you have a harvest full of dreams.

I think I just find it frustrating because I really want to go "thats total rubbish, you made that up" every time there's a new crisis but I cant because even though i know its rubbish I cant prove it!! Plus I hate having to do the sympathy routine despite knowing that its lies.

Bel bel, I used to do as you suggest and just appear totally uninterested in the dramas - the result was I ended up at the centre of a new drama, where on a night out with a group of us, she called me up on my so called behaviour, did a big speech about how I was so insensitive for not being there for her given all she was going through, started crying and made a huge scene. All very public and made me look like an absolute cow. I know that a lot of our mutual friends have suspicions about her too, but its not really spoken of and i've no intention of starting the debate!

I'm going to do as you all suggest and try avoid her. Needless to say, I'll have to make up some excuse to get out of this party invite. Maybe I'll have to take a leaf out of her book and think of some crazy crisis to have that prevents me from going!

Thanks bel bel, there's no way i'm going on a guilt trip over this one. I dont think she can do much damage with other friends as a few people have commented to me that it was bad form of her not to show up at the funeral or call.

Its comforting to know that i'm not the only one who's experienced people like this. Although its disturbing that there are so many of them out there!!

Just read this thread and wanted to say you're definitely not alone as I have a friend who is all about the drama too. I don't think she's as bad as yours or earthchild's in fairness, but her life could still be a soap opera. She's always saying her phone has been stolen (it's been 'stolen' about 10 times - what she really means is she got way too drunk and lost it), recently her drink has been spiked (again, I reckon she just got way too drunk), someone has forged her cheques and stolen money from her bank account (she probably just spent way too much money). The latest thing is her texting me this morning to cancel our plans because she possibly has swine flu and her work have told her to stay at home and not infect anyone else. Hmmmm!

I don't know what else you can do other than avoid your 'friend'. To be honest I've found myself doing the same with my friend. As I said, I don't think she's as bad as your friend, deep down I think she's a nice enough person, but I cannot be bothered to sit and basically listen to her latest drama/'problem' and react in the way she wants me to (e.g. be shocked and sympathetic) when all I want to do is tell her to stop attention seeking and getting so drunk etc! It gets very tiring!

Oh I know, my work would be like wtf are you on about too, but hers are obviously very relaxed - she has at least one bout of sickness related time off every month, then expects me to be all 'oh no, are you ok...'. If she was genuinely ill obviously I'd be concerned, but she'll go on like that, take time off work, then STILL go on a night out and get hammered!

we have a woman at work that has had everything wrong with her you can think of and if you get ill and she hasn't had it she gets it sometime in the future and 50 times worse than you ever had it. She has been struck off from doctors, you know its pretty bad when it's more than one. I think she has munchausen and munchausen by proxy becasue she claims to be an animal lover (the only vegetarian i know that eats tuna and prawns ) and she let her cat live when the vet told her twice she needed to put him down

Bel Bel wrote:we have a woman at work that has had everything wrong with her you can think of and if you get ill and she hasn't had it she gets it sometime in the future and 50 times worse than you ever had it. She has been struck off from doctors, you know its pretty bad when it's more than one.

We have a girl like that at work, I admit when she isn't winging she's really nice. However she was apparently having an MSN conversation with another friend (the other friend told me the story)...

Work Girl: *Winging on about her ailments for ages apparently*Friend: My bf has just been diagnosed with XXWork Girl: Oh really I've had thatFriend: You've had XXWork Girl: definately, the doctor said I had it last time I was thereFriend: Well just incase you didn't know the cause of XX is YYYY (YYYY is something that is injury or genetic related or something that work girl couldn't have had)Work Girl: oh actually I don't think that is what I've got...

My friend said it was sooooooo funny watching her dig her way back out the hole from it.